We bring you a good, interesting idea from the Jane Goodall Institute. The British naturalist and expert in primates has joined forces with Fonebank, a company specializing in re-using and recycling cellphones, to encourage us to recycle our cellphones, thus keeping them from polluting the environment, while we make a contribution towards improving and protecting African ecosystems.

To participate in this campaign, all you need to do is download the pre-paid postage tag, and send your cellphone(s) for free. You can print it in black & white or photocopy it.

You can send cellphones, in working condition or not, with battery but without charger, or SIM card and other elements. Fonebank will donate a part of the recycled phone’s value to the Jane Goodall Institute, where, in appreciation for this support, anyone taking part in the campaign to sponsor Chimpfriends will enter a draw for a recycled cellphone, which goes to show the enormous impact our contribution can make.

Who doesn’t have an old cellphone at home they don’t use? This is a new and different way to chip in.

Maria Mazariegos from ideas4all

This week, we attended the conference-debate Tendencias X.0, organized by Fundación Telefónica, with Professor Ray Kurzweil as guest speaker.

Kurzweil is a technologist, adviser and driving force for the Singularity University in Silicon Valley, and is currently considered one of the world’s greatest “specialists in the future”. He forecast a surprising future, in which micro-computers could be introduced in our brain to counteract degenerative diseases, his description of the future including the “fusion” between technology and human organisms.

He also claimed that solar power will soon provide practically all energy consumed in the world, with the support of the exponential growth experienced by ITC’s; and he compared the skeptics to those who, a few years back, did not believe in the Internet.

Professor Kurzweil counts with passionate followers around the world, for whom his books, such as “The Age of Intelligent Machines”, “The Age of Spiritual Machines” and “The Singularity is Near” are a reference. His presentations are always spectacular and he summarizes his conception of the future very well in this phrase: “The moment a sphere of science or technology becomes information, it accelerates and grows exponentially”.

Today, June 5th, is World Environment Day. This year’s priority is to conserve biodiversity, and merely a glance at the figures is enough to become aware of how important it is to conserve our surroundings.
In their website, Greenpeace say an “estimated 18,000 to 55,000 species are lost every year in our planet, a phenomenon that can be compared to the extinction of dinosaurs, and which scientists have named the Sixth Extinction”

At ideas4all, we would like to join World Environment Day to help conserve biodiversity, with some of the good ideas our ideators have shared with the Community:

(35651) SOLAR PANELS IN OUTDOOR PARKING LOTS
(1426) Urban furniture to obtain solar power
(61681) Composting plant in Elche (Region of Valencia, Spain)
(5761) VEGETABLE GARDEN AT SCHOOL
(55301) ECOSYSTEMS IN HEIGHTS, PLANTS IN BALCONIES, ROOFTOPS, TERRACES AND COURTYARDS
(40306)  Seed exchange Bank
(63110)  Green TV
(3629)  A Green Points System

Maria Mazariegos from ideas4all

We were in Jerez de la Frontera this last Friday and Saturday, for the First Edition of the Jerez Social Media Meeting (JerezSMM website), which fulfilled all the expectations created by one of the prominent channel for discussion of Social Media, and the importance they are acquiring in business, social, and cultural circles. At the meeting, we had the chance to talk about the latest trends in 2.0 web, and listen to guest speakers.

The event received a fantastic response, and as it was streamed on the Internet, it had an intensive following through twitter (see #jerezsmm). The organization has announced they will offer material from the event in the coming days.

A big Thanks to all of you for following the event so closely, and for taking an interest in what we do at ideas4all.

We attended the Nonick Conference this last week-end, which has established itself as another prominent 2.0 event. Nonick took place in the headquarters of the Basque public radio and television network, in Bilbao. We had the chance to listen to Jennifer Preston, social media editor of The New York Times, who explained why being present in social networks is essential. Preston highlighted the importance of 2.0 tools in generating news and stated that “The New York Times hunts for trends in social networks”.

Another star speaker included in the program was Zaryn Dentzel, founder of the social network Tuenti, who argued for maintaining a local perspective.

This is one of the interviews given by Preston in Nonick and this is the video-news report on Tuenti as broadcast by EITB. Nonick has revealed itself as a true experience through which to share what we do at ideas4all and to learn of other pioneering projects, at national and international levels.

A parallel start-up contest was organized, which was won by Submate.com. Ideas4all would like to congratulate the winners, as well as the runner-up, Minube.

A conference-debate took place this last Tuesday at Fundación Telefónica, on the subject of “Empowerment”. It was broadcast live over the Internet and is available for recorded viewing. Responsible for the main conference was Professor Sugata Mitra, Educational Technology professor at Newcastle University, renowned around the world as the promoter of the experiment ”Hole in the Wall“, for which, in 1999, he placed computers in a kiosk created on the wall of a poor neighborhood in New Dehli, offering children free access to these computers.

The experiment proved that children could learn to use the computer very easily, helping one another, motivated by their curiosity and without any type of formal training. The event, ninth and penultimate in the cycle of ten open debates organized by Fundación Telefónica, tackled the analysis of a term, “empowerment”, that holds a great revolution that has arrived with the Internet. New technologies make it less expensive to make one’s voice heard in society, it has become more feasible to make an impact and to speak out, and this should help diminish social exclusion, as highlighted by Fundación Telefónica’s knowledge section.

Technologies, if properly used, may allow us to balance the power within society.

On April 19th, we attended the presentation of the book, “Honest Signals: How they shape our world”, at Fundación Telefónica.

Although a couple of weeks have passed, we can’t help but mention in our blog, professor Alex Pentland’s analysis of a new area of study known as “social network science”.

Alex Pentland is Director of the Human Dynamics Lab and the Media Lab Entrepreneurship Program at MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology). He is the author of “Honest Signals: How they shape our world”, and begins the conference by pointing out the existence of two minds:

Habitual: Fast, Automatic and Associated

Attentive: Slow, Serial, Controlled, Rule Based

“Most decisions are made by the habitual brain, meaning our behavior is dominated by habits, routine. This is called habitual behavior.

Learning, according to prof. Pentland, occurs through imitation, social pressure, examples.

He also speaks of our ability as humans to interpret ourselves, and of software that is capable of reading our brain in a general way. Software to interpret humans.

This is getting interesting…

It seems obvious that our behavior can be very accurately predicted through the signals we emit, using, for example, devices such as mobile phones.

For Pentland, people use a second channel for social communication, independent of linguistic codes, that revolves around social relations, registering and decoding the “honest signals” that make up our social fabric and that are used to communicate, control the discovery and integration of information, and to make decisions.

According to this researcher, by observing people in a given social context, one may predict how things will evolve.

Adopting roles and social circuits seemed to create a kind of automatism in decision-making that works by extracting ideas from individuals and processing them, until one is chosen as the group decision.

Honest signals, which are automatic and unconscious (attitudes, sounds, gestures…), have great value. Pentland believes that organizations and businesses should take advantage of these natural patterns in human social circuits.

In order to measure these signals and predict individual and group behavior, the MIT lab has developed the sociometer, a small badge containing a micro-chip that is wirelessly connected to a network.

In short, these are tools and methods used to measure said signals and convert them into manageable information, in order to detect behavior patterns and predict individual and group behavior. We are witnessing the birth of a new and emerging area of academic study, known as network science, which seeks to understand people in the context of their social networks instead of considering them isolated individuals.

According to Pentland, in the future, we will be able to perceive the human environment with the same precision we now perceive the physical environment, which will give us microscopic knowledge of organizations and even entire societies, allowing us to design physical behavior models for human populations. We are witnessing the creation of “designed societies” which may very well function better than our current societies.

We would like to highlight one question a member of the audience posed on privacy and data ownership, which tends to be a concern for us all: What about our data?

The professor explains how individuals give their personal data, and through the use of parametric anonymous data, companies may generate value that will affect the whole of society. The data is ours, the technology transforms it by generating value that can be used by companies.

It is well worth taking a look at the book to find out more on this new area of study and these future designed societies.

Rocío Bravo of  Ideas4all

The 5th edition of this European competition took place on April 28th in Madrid, congregating the work of inventors who have achieved technical innovations that have contributed and will continue to contribute towards improving the lives of millions of people.

The winners of this 2010 edition are:

Wolfgang Krätschmer (Germany) in the category Lifetime achievement for “molecular synthesis of carbon C60”.

Jürgen Pfitzer and Helmut Nägele (Germany) in the category SME/research for “natural plastic Arboform as a green alternative to plastic”, which seeks to replace traditional plastic.

Albert Markendorf (Switzerland) and Raimund Loser (Germany), in the Industry category, for “3D measuring laser system”.

Sanjai Kohli and Steven Chen (USA) in the non-European countries category, for their “receiver chip that allowed the introduction of GPS in the consumer market” and also in this category, Ben Wiens and Danny Epps, (Canada) for the invention of Hydrogen-fueled batteries.

Maria Mazariegos from ideas4all

To celebrate Book Day, ideas4all would like to recommend 10 books that any ideator with an eager mind and keen on enterprising should read, to find inspiration, advice, and to learn how to get things started.

Happy Book Day!

Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki
This book is widely considered essential reading for any entrepreneur. The quote on the inside cover, “I don’t work for money, money works for me!” makes it perfectly clear that this book is here to help us achieve the objectives we yearn for.

Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey
Stephen Covey, known as the American Socrates, divides his book in 7 stages we must all adapt our circumstances and expectations to. The author explains the 7 habits he considers most important, after studying many books on personal success, and offers examples, through exercises, of how we can put them to practice in our everyday life, and be successful.

Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman
Goleman writes on the importance of making a positive use of our emotions and directing them towards efficiency in our work and in our relationships, be they with co-workers or friends. We are now judged not solely on our intelligence but also on our ability to relate to others.

The art of the start by Guy Kawasaki
This is one of the most widely recognized guides for entrepreneurs in the world. The cover of the book describes it as “A guide to start anything”, and makes it clear under this precept that the book is not only for those who want to start a business, but rather for anyone who wants to start something new in their life.
Little Black Book of Entrepreneurship by Fernando Trias de Bes
This book tells us of the most common mistakes made by entrepreneurs. Take note, for it is often better to have others tell us what can go wrong “the mistakes entrepreneurs tend to make are not usually management-related, but are, paradoxically, caused by the very force that induce them to enterprise: enthusiasm“.

Living without a boss by Sergio Fernández
Compiles the 50 most frequent mistakes made by entrepreneurs. These are divided in 5 chapters: errors in planning, errors in everyday work, errors in the relationships with other people, errors in the relationship to oneself, and errors made once we stop working. Very recommendable reading.

How to win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie
Dale Carnegie never imagined his book would become a bestseller. He offers a series of specific and simple rules that will help us relate to others. He reminds us that the people we have to deal with are beings guided by emotions. How to interest people, how to cause a good impression.

What Clients Love by Harry Beckwith
This book is a useful guide teaching us everything and anything, from how to say a speech, to developing a brand, designing a logo, closing agreements, etc. It also includes, as in other books, real-life stories of success and failure.

A Passion for entrepreneurship by Andy Freire
An entrepreneur’s manual narrated through the personal experience of an entrepreneur who had an idea and managed to turn it into a successful business.

Selling the Invisible by Harry Beckwith
A book giving us a deeper insight into the details of marketing and the reasons why some of its elements fail despite everything we do: focus groups, value-price positioning, discounts, etc.

Maria Mazariegos from ideas4all